Tag: Equity Summit

This is the final installment of my Chicago series. I hope you enjoyed taking this journey with me here and here.

I was in Chicago to attend the Policy LinkEquity Summit 2018. Please pay them a visit to get the full understanding of the work that Policy Link does. It was an experience that I will not soon forget.
As you can tell by the title the Equity Summit was a conference that addressed ways to create policies to make our communities safe and balanced for ALL, this equality goes beyond just black & white. Although that is a great starting point for my Memphis community. This is about Equity for all. It was about making policy to make change in our world. Here are a few takeaways.

The theme for the day was #TrustYouth During our mobile tour we spent time on the North side of Chicago at the Free Street Theater learning how the young people of Chicago use art as part of their activism. They call it Social Justice Theater. These young people are not afraid to speak up & speak out. They give me hope for our future. We then moved to the South side of Chicago. I had a chance to meet Ayesha Jaco (Lupe Fiasco’s sister). She taught us a few dance steps..FAME style to the music of Curtis Mayfield. If you don’t know the legacy of Curtis Mayfield let me know so we can talk about it. We also talked about “tone”. We listened to the Michael Jackson version of Billie Jean followed by The Civil Wars version. Same lyrics but delivered in different ways changes the whole tone of the song. My takeaway from this exercise was how you say something matters just as much as what you say. A great reminder especially when you are having a difficult conversation especially around diversity & equality. Thank you to our amazing tour guide Donnie Nicole Smith, the Executive Director of Donda’s House (named after Kanye West mother).

Takeaway Two- “Policy comes before power” #OurPower

The plenary sessions were the best. The passion and fire for creating policies that focus on equity was very powerful. A few phrases that stood out to me were “Pissed with purpose” and “Radical hope, radical imagination”. Edna Chavez spoke about the March For Our Lives Movement from the young Latina perspective. When I tell you that this young lady was impressive, believe me she was. It was great to hear Linda Sarsour co-chair of the 2017 Women’s Movement, share her thoughts and perspectives. Charlene Carruthers of BYP100 dropped this gem on us….”People like mutuality as long as they can stay on top”…..read that again and share it with a friend.

Takeaway Three- Still Fighting: Overcoming Structural Racism and Political Opposition in the South #OurNation

This was my second favorite session. Living in a very red state as a person of color or just a person who is in anyway “different” has its challenges. This session shined the light on some things that sent me to Google. Yes, I will find a book to dig deeper but in that moment I needed some clarification. Did you know that 38% of the electoral college votes are in the South? As stated in the session “In order for our nation to move forward the South has to move first”. The two terms that sent me to Google were, the Black Belt, this has nothing to do with karate and Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy. The Southern Strategy is in full effect in 2018. I’m currently listening to the podcast Slow Burn: A Podcast About Watergate. Unfortunately we are definitely repeating history with #45.

Takeaway Four- A Momentum Shift

About 10 years ago I went through the New Memphis Institute Fellows program. That year long program forever changed my life. It was the catalyst for me wanting to work in nonprofit. The Equity Summit is the catalyst for me to continue moving forward more energized than ever before. It opened my mind to new ways to create effective change.

The latest in my Chicago series. The last installment will be next week as I share all about the Equity Summit and what it meant to me and will mean to the city of Memphis. But for now I want to introduce you to some new friends.

After flying into Chicago that morning on a 6 am flight, taking what seemed like a long ride from O’Hara to downtown Chicago, checking into the hotel, waiting on my room to be ready, having breakfast while waiting, finally getting into my room, walking to the host hotel to register for the conference, I was ready for my fist session. Yes, I was tired but I meet a couple of ladies that lifted my spirits and made a really long day worth it. Meet my new friends Monique & Carolyn.

My first session for the Equity Summit was a mobile tour called Art Driving Activism: The Young Artist Movement in Chicago. We had a chance to visit two art focused organizations that are helping to cultivate the next generation of young activists in Chicago.

I met Monique while waiting on the bus to arrive. The first thing I noticed was her Black Loves Matter T-shirt and the fact that the sandwich that was eating smelled delicious. We stuck up a conversation & became bus buddies. Monique is from Colorado, yes there are African- Americans in Colorado, we had a good conversation and laugh about this. Turns out that she was headed to Memphis for the AFBE conference after the Equity Summit. Monique is also a mother of boys and we talked about the responsibility that goes along with advocating, teaching and protecting our boys and men of color.

At the end of the tour I struck up a conversation with another lady on the tour. We were staying in the same hotel & decided to walk back together. As we were walking back we started talking & learned that we had a lot in common. Both single parents, although her kids are older than mine, we were only a few years apart in age, she is working on her Master’s degree, something that I did later in life also. The biggest thing is that we both have a love for writing and the written word.

After making it back to the hotel we decided to have a drink in the lobby. Now when you get women together with a glass of wine what’s the one topic that you know will come up….MEN!! We had so many laughs. We also shared a lot of the same goals. Just because we are in our 50’s we are still determined to grow both financially and professionally.

Now we could not let this trip pass without a little outing. The next day after our last session we decided to be head to Navy Pier to shop and grab dinner. This my honeybees was like an episode of I Love Lucy. We started by trying to catch the bus, like the CTA bus. We had to figure out which bus to catch and the insanity ensued from there. After waiting for over 20 minutes on the bus Carolyn decided to hail a cab. No luck there either, so we went back to figuring out the bus situation. Finally, the right bus shows up and we make it to the Navy Pier. We enjoyed walking around the Pier, buying souvenirs and eating pizza at Giordano’s. We decided to take a cab back for our return trip. They were plentiful and it was getting dark.

I really enjoyed hanging out with Carolyn. We have promised that we will stay in touch and thanks to social media we are able to do just that. Out of 4,000 people I found two people that shared my same energy.

Thank you ladies for hanging out with me.

Beewisdom- Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference -Winston Churchill